February 23. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
407 
they be for the allotment holder or cottager to push into the 
market in the middle of May. Indeed, it is much to be 
lamented that our manufacturing and agricultural labourers, 
who hold a nice little plot of land, do not better understand 
their position in regard of these market matters. There 
really needs a little, highly-condensed hand-book to guide 
them; a waistcoat-pocket affair; but, to be really useful, it 
must be written by “ one who has whistled at” the spade. 
And now, after speaking of schemes and policies, let me 
turn to the genuine old-fashioned work of the month. 
First—are your plans of cropping determined on? If not, 
you are much to blame. Set to and decide immediately. 
Above all, take care to secure some good keeping roots ; and 
if you cannot eat them your pig will. I need not repeat 
them here; you know all about them and their importance. 
The past winter will have taught you a lesson you will not 
speedily forget. Let your cropping scheme be so planned 
as that two-thirds of it shall be in the main intended for 
keeping roots, unless you can comprehend my suggestions 
as to market work, when you are welcome to plan as you 
please. Remember, that most of these roots require deep 
digging, and most of the manure at about a foot to half-a- 
yard below the surface. They thus obtain the most power 
when most needed—say from the end of June to the end of 
August. But it is well to do even more, and which I have 
frequently suggested in these pages—to do what our great 
agriculturists do—to use a little dressing in the drill, for it 
is of the utmost importance for young seedlings that when 
they come up that they be strong plants betimes. Our 
readers will remember that I have repeatedly advised a soot 
compost for this purpose. 
Parsnips must be got in immediately. I sow in the 
third week of February. The ground, being prepared for 
Mangold or Swedes, may either have early Potatoes between 
the lines intended for the root-crops, or a few roots of early 
Coleworts may be obtained from it. Anything which will be 
cleared off the ground by the early part of July. A provision, 
indeed, must be made, by some means, for a few Cabbages, 
but they should not be permitted to occupy ground as a 
principal crop ; plenty of spaces will be found for them. 
Onions, if not sown, maybe got in by the middle of March. 
The ground deep dug; a little manure kept well down, and 
a little of the soot and guano mixture sowed by hand over 
the seed before soiling it over. Let the beds be rolled hard 
after sowing when they are very dry. 
Peas may be sown for a full summer crop in the first 
week, chosing the Redman's Imperial, which rises about 
thirty inches high. The cottager should make this his last 
sowing. 
Broad Beans. —The last planting must be got in immedi¬ 
ately ; indeed it is getting full late for a full crop. 
Turnips. —A few of the Early Dutch may be sown on any 
spare border in the early part of the month; they are, how¬ 
ever, more a luxury than a profit. 
Lettuces. —A little of Ady's cos, or Bath cos, may be sprinkled 
in with the Onions, to be transplanted between other crops; and 
it will be well to sow a good sprinkling again towards the 
end of the month, as plants from these two sowings will be 
much larger than any during the remainder of the summer. 
Indeed, March and July are the two months in which Let¬ 
tuce sowing becomes most profitable, and three sowings 
should be made in each by those who keep a pig, as their 
waste leaves and stems are capital pig food; to a sow with 
pigs more valuable still; whilst Lettuce is peculiarly the 
cottager’s salad, and known to be not only wholesome but 
nutritious. 
Spinach may be sown to advantage in the first week of 
March, as a mixed crop, but must on no account occupy 
land as a principal. 
A little Cabbage of a dwarf kind, such as Matchless once 
was, should be sown once a month until September. Towards 
tbe end of the month, or in the early part of the April, the 
larger Carrots may be sown. The middle of April, however, 
is a safer period. As to other little proceedings, such as 
sticking Peas, filling up Cabbage blanks, planting half-a- 
dozen Red Cabbages to pickle, and so forth, the allotment 
man will of himself remember all about them. I here try to 
remind him that the hoe or fork must be kept agoing. No 
quarter to Weeds, must be the motto. If the first spring 
weeds are allowed to go to seed, one might fancy the owner 
by no means an idle man, inasmuch as he has thereby pro¬ 
vided himself with a doubled amount of labour. 
Finally; let all cultural processes but planting-out be 
done when the soil is dry. R. Errington. 
APIARIAN’S CALENDAR.— March. 
By J. 11. Payne, Esq., Author of “ The Bee-Keeper's 
Guide," dbc. 
Bees gathering Pollen. —Bees may now be seen upon 
a bright day in the Aconites and early kinds of Crocuses, 
collecting the little pollen and honey which they afford; and 
it is but little indeed—onlyjust suflicientto arousethe workers 
to activity, and the queens to depositing their eggs; therefore, . 
without careful and constant feeding, death by starvation 
must follow; for I imagine that not one stock in ten has 
sufficient honey in store to support it through the winter 
and early spring. 
Forsaking Hives. —Where tlio population is low, and 
little or no food in store, the bees are very likely, upon a 
fine and mild day, towards the end of the month, to forsake 
their hives entirely, and to join themselves to more populous 
and better-stored communities. This desertion, when it 
happens towards the end of April, is frequently mistaken 
for an early swarm; the only means of prevention is to 
keep them well supplied with food; but even this will not, in 
all cases, keep them from leaving their hives. 
Wasps. —It will be well, during the present and the next 
month, to be looking for queen-wasps, and destroying every 
one that makes its appearance. A garden-syringe, as I have 
already said, is the most useful thing I have ever found to 
effect their destruction, for if discharged at them, it brings 
them to the ground, and the foot then finishes the business. 
DORKINGS AS RECENTLY EXHIBITED. 
If the value of good Dorkings has greatly increased 
during the past year, the quality of these birds has certainly 
made a proportionate advance. Such a result speaks most 
favourably for the good already accomplished by Poultry 
Societies, against which the charge has been so often 
levelled, that, however advantageous for the purposes of the 
fancier, they would have little effect on the breeds that were 
destined to provide for the wants of our tables. But since 
the farmer’s fowl, as the Dorking has been not inaptly 
called, has thus prospered under their auspices, and to no 
other cause can their present position be justly assigned, 
their avowed object, “the improvement of the various 
breeds of domestic poultry,” has, in this instance, at least, 
been admirably effected. 
The Exhibition of the Royal Agricultural Society at 
Gloucester, in the summer of 1853, brought together by far 
the best collection of Dorkings that had ever been sub¬ 
mitted to public notice; but manifest as the improvement 
on that occasion, it was even surpassed by the display at 
Bingley Hall, in December of the same year. In the ex¬ 
pression of such an opinion, full weight is attached to the 
relative conditions of the two shows, of which the former, 
in a great measure, consisted of young chickens, whose 
subsequent appearance, in many instances, at Birmingham, 
presented them in at a more matured form. 
A few years since, mere size, and that, we imagine, often ! 
falling short of the present average, was mainly regarded 
by the breeder, to the exclusion of both feather and form, 
and since in this light the characteristic feature of the race, 
the fifth toe, mattered little, the large Surrey or Sussex fowls 
destitute of this supernumerary number would have an¬ 
swered all his requirements. But now we have not merely 
advanced with respect to feather, but the well-bred Dorking 
of the present day, in its improved form, gives a larger 
proportion of flesh compared with offal to that produced by 
its four-clawed connexions, and taking the best specimens, 
no loss of weight, we believe, need be submitted to. 
But there are few persons so indifferent to external ap¬ 
pearances, that where beauty of plumage can bo combined 
with the economical properties of a fowl, a preference will 
not be awarded to the bird thus distinguished over that 
